I have an article in New Matilda today about the upcoming NSW state redistribution and I wanted to post some additional information here at the Tally Room.
The NSWEC has posted the enrolment data for December 2012 on the redistribution website. The following table breaks the enrolment data down by region, giving a sense of how much each region is above or below quota.
| Region | No. of seats | Quotas |
| Central Sydney | 10 | 10.44 |
| Northern Sydney | 11 | 10.85 |
| Southern Sydney | 6 | 5.86 |
| South-West Sydney | 10 | 10.09 |
| Western Sydney | 15 | 15.25 |
| Sydney total | 52 | 52.47 |
| Far North Coast | 4 | 3.96 |
| Hunter & Central Coast | 14 | 14.03 |
| Mid North Coast | 3 | 2.98 |
| South-East NSW | 9 | 8.90 |
| Western NSW | 11 | 10.66 |
| Regional NSW total | 41 | 40.53 |
Overall there are large over quotas in Western Sydney and Central Sydney. The over quota in Western Sydney (largely due to a massive over quota in Riverstone) will partly be used to bring the seats in Northern Sydney up to quota, while the surplus in the centre of Sydney will need to be shifted through South-West Sydney to make up for the shortfall in Western NSW.
Western NSW is 34% below its eleventh quota, and this will likely see Barwon and Murray-Darling take on territory from their neighbours and pretty major changes around Burrinjuck and Goulburn.
Most seats will change in minor ways, but the major changes will likely take place along a chain from Sydney to Burrinjuck.
The following maps show (in red) which seats are likely to have major changes as a chain reaction. As an example, Canterbury and Strathfield are likely to gain quite a lot of extra territory to absorb the excess quota in Marrickville, Balmain, Sydney and Heffron. This would result in even more territory having to be transferred to the next group of seats.
In terms of individual seats, Antony Green produced a map a few months ago showing which seats are above or below the quota.
The first round of submissions will close in early March, and I’ll return to the issue then.
I am just starting to play with it now, but it looks a hell of a lot more straightforward than the Victorian redistribution….no major changes north of Sydney, a bit of fiddling up and down the Hume corridor and maybe some parts of Sydney, but nothing too dramatic.
I must admit I am surprised that O’Farrell didn’t use this opportunity to increase the number of seats. With so many new MPs in traditionally Labor-leaning seats, it is going to be a tough ask for the Coalition to accommodate them all. I am expecting to see a few salamander-shaped beasts in the Liberal submission as they try to lock up all the good Labor areas in a small number of seats!
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